


Awash in Gold and Blue (Beautiful Things)

by obirain



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Artist!Reader, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Insecurity, Swearing, too many adjectives i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obirain/pseuds/obirain
Summary: Request (from Tumblr): “I was hoping to request a fluffy Obi fic where reader is rather insecure about her looks and is surprised to find out that Obi likes her?”
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Reader, Obi-Wan Kenobi/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Awash in Gold and Blue (Beautiful Things)

You hate to waste paper. 

Especially paper like this. It’s impossible to find, expensive beyond belief—for someone with your sort of income, anyway. Especially with the cracks in the drywall, the tears in your worn down sofa; you have to cherish each and every sheet. Who knows when you’ll be able to buy more?

But you’ve been scribbling, erasing, and scribbling again for _hours._ Hours without progress, hours of staring at the hideous composition and skewed proportions. Maybe your hand is too tired? Maybe you’ve had a bad day. Maybe you’ve been staring at your reference too long—a dull, unpleasant reference at that. 

Whatever it is, you’ve had _enough._

So here you are: slumped in your old, lopsided office chair, your sketch crumpled into a ball atop your overstuffed trash can. Hours, wasted. Your wrist aches; your fingertips are cold and numb. You’ve stared at that paper so long that your apartment looks unnaturally dim. Everything blends together—a mess of grey and purple with no light except what radiates from the tired, yellow lamp on your desk, and the shadows that dance on your wall. You’re vaguely aware of the traffic noises outside, but they’re muffled somehow. Not just through metal and drywall but through velvet and bacta. Too dark, too still, too _silent—_

Except for the knock at the door. 

Anxiety courses through you and startles the pen right out of your numbed fingers. Your hole-in-the-wall of a home? You grit your teeth and force yourself to tiptoe to the entryway. Your limbs move sluggishly, like lead wading through water, as you feel around for the vibroblade on a sparse and dusty shelf. 

You’ve hardly scrapped it off before there’s another knock, softer this time. “Only me, darling.”

The tension in your muscles dissipates and gentle warmth blooms in its place. You open the door and suck in a breath. The dim blue light from the hallway seeps into your apartment, while the dim gold light from your apartment seeps into the hallway, mingling into the color of your pleasanter dreams before morning. Caught in the middle is the man himself. Warmly illuminated yet hauntingly backlit, a fond smile already gracing his face.

“My apologies; I didn’t mean to startle you.” Obi-Wan’s voice hits your ears like honey. You hadn’t realized, after so many hours in silence, how _starved_ you are for it. And you hadn’t realized, after so many hours with nothing but your reference for company, and so many weeks of his absence, how starved you are for _him._

You blink your thoughts away and try to ignore the way the light gleams in his eyes. “N—no, not at all… At least,” you huff when he raises an eyebrow, “no more than usual when someone bangs on my door at nine at night.”

“I’d never _bang,_ my dear. Besides, I come bearing gifts.” He raises a plastic bag and a salty, savory aroma wafts into the tiny room. Only now do you notice how hungry you are. You look from him, to the bag, and back to him—noting in particular the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. 

“I guess I should let you in, then.”

You step aside, nearly flipping on the overhead lights out of habit but resisting at the last moment. They grate more harshly on everything they touch, highlighting the dust on your shelves and the clutter on your desk, and every little blemish marring your skin. Normally the soft, subdued glow would feel a bit too… too _intimate,_ but somehow it doesn’t feel quite as dark anymore. Something about the way the light plays on Obi-Wan’s face makes him a light source of his own, like one of Coruscant’s moons you can _just_ glimpse from your window on the clearest of nights. 

“You haven’t eaten yet, I hope?” He sits at the edge of your low couch and sets the bag on your tiny coffee table. “I do realize it’s rather late. I’d be more than happy to leave this here, and—”

“I’m sure you would, Obi-Wan.” You collapse at the other end of the sofa and sigh, content for the moment to rest in the scent of what you presume is fried potatoes, and in the feeling slowly returning to your weary fingers. “Yes, it’s late. No, I haven’t eaten. You know how it is.”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

He peels the plastic away and hands you a box, along with some flimsy, pre-wrapped utensils. You raise an eyebrow. “Dex’s? That’s… That’s a little out of your way, isn’t it?”

Obi-Wan shrugs. “I did bang on your door, after all. It’s the least I could do. Which reminds me—”

He pats around his robes before pulling a vial from one of his pockets. It’s long and narrow, and stuffed with bits of color. He uncaps it and empties it into his hand.

Two long-stemmed, long-leaved flowers fall out, their heads no larger than your thumb. The shape suggests something in the daisy family, but their petals are a too-vivid cerulean blue, and their centers a too-bold sunshine yellow. They’re a little lifeless, a little dehydrated, a little discolored, but something about the way they lie on his broad, open palm, their stems hopelessly intertwined, transfixes you.

“They’ve been through quite the ordeal, I’m afraid—”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Rather dead-looking already—”

“Obi-Wan.” You place both your hands on either side of his, soft and warm to the touch. “They’re lovely. Perfect. Beautiful.”

You pluck them delicately from his palm, as if they’ll disintegrate on contact. Little holes line the edges of their petals; they let the glowing, golden light stream through in the most delicate rays. Maybe they’re a little worse for wear, but it’s nothing some time on a damp towel can’t fix. They’d soak up the water faster if you’d separate them, but even now you can’t bring yourself to. 

“I wouldn’t have them any other way,” you add quietly. “Besides, I’ll be pressing them. You won’t be able to tell once they’re glued do— _these aren’t poisonous, are they?”_

“I suppose we’ll find out,” Obi-Wan smirks.

You smack his shoulder. “’Find out’? Like I _found out_ about the Fenec fern?”

His smile falters and his forehead creases. “That was years ago, wasn’t it?”

“It _was,”_ you grumble. “It burned a hole right through my book; I had to rip out five pages! Do you know how much that hurt me, Obi-Wan? Hurt me in my soul?” You take a bite of your food, a bit more aggressively than even Dex’s fried potatoes would warrant. 

“Very deeply, I’m sure. I do apologize.”

He hasn’t touched his dinner yet—he only watches you with a gaze far too… _personal,_ somehow. You look away, down at your food and your daisies as heat spreads over your face. You hope he can’t see it in the dim light. 

“Thank you for the flowers, Obi-Wan,” you murmur, staring at the floor. “You’re… entirely too good to me.”

“Not quite as good as you deserve, my dear.”

He says it so smoothly, so _easily,_ as if the words live permanently on his tongue. _Does he know what it does to you? Does he mean it? No, of course not—_

“But I’m rather interested in this _book_ of yours,” he continues. “I’ve never heard of such a book; it seems valuable.”

“Yes, valuable…” Your eyes shift around the little room as you force a shrug. “Somethings are worth the expense.”

“Indeed.” He nods gravely, and he’s decent enough not to examine your flat with you. “What sort of a book is it? I hope the missing pages haven’t utterly ruined your reading experience. Otherwise I’d be more than happy to—”

“They haven’t,” you rush. Your face heats up again. “It’s more… more for art. Personal art. The kind… The kind I wouldn’t sell.”

“Personal?” Something in his eyes shifts, you can’t tell what, before he looks away—too quickly. _Is he blushing?_ “I see. It’s not… Is it… ?”

You squint at him. Obi-Wan Kenobi, at a loss for words? It feels… wrong. And it takes you just a moment too long to understand before you bury your face in your hands. 

_“It’s not pornography, Obi-Wan.”  
_

He shakes his head. “I hadn’t—I wouldn’t presume—”

You can’t help but break into a fit of laughter as his blush deepens, and he brings a hand over his eyes. Even so, he can’t quite keep the smile off his face. 

“How would I know? This is the first I’m hearing about ‘personal art.’“

“Well, it’s—it’s—” You stab your fork into your food again and again, with no intention to eat it. Words fail you—you feel like an empty vessel trying to fill itself from the inside. But with each pause, the silence returns and threatens to suffocate you; you wish you could turn out the lights. 

“It’s not just art… There’s some poetry, some plants—practice, mostly… for beautiful things.”

Obi-Wan strokes his beard and watches you carefully. You’re sure he can sense your anxiety—and maybe something else along with it—and you’ve never been so frustrated you can’t read him in return. 

“Beautiful things…” he repeats softly. “Are these… available for observation?”

You risk meeting his eyes. You’d think, in the dim lamplight, that his eyes would seem duller, more colorless. If anything they only shine brighter, like molten gold in clear water. It’s mesmerizing; you tuck it away in your memories for later. For now, though, now you’re torn between the inexplicable desire to share this more secret part of yourself, and the urge to hide under your bed.

You glance to it in the far corner. The blankets lie piled up in unkempt heaps, where they’ve been for days now. Something about an unmade bed makes the mattress look fuller and cozier than it really is. 

You force yourself to stand, tiptoeing towards it with heavy limbs, and reach between the mattress and the bedframe. It’s been here almost a year, ever since a client found it wide open on your desk and asked for its price; you grimace at the memory. The edges of its fabric covering have frayed; the pale blue cover’s now tinged with white and grey undertones. It’s thick and heavy, and a little worse for wear.

Even so, you hand it to him from across the coffee table. You don’t sit—you’re much too tense for that. You only cross your arms and watch him feel the weight in his hands. He traces the small letters you inked in the corner long ago. _Beautiful Things._ Now, as you watch him, it seems simple, childish, redundant, but you think you see the hint of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth as he flips it open. 

Inside—a mess of line and color. Page after page of rough sketches, refined sketches, little landscapes, living portraits, stanzas of poems scrawled in the margins. Poems you’d written, poems you’d read. Strangers in air taxis, children playing in dingy streets, and the couple in the building across from yours who like to slow dance at midnight. 

“Just little things,” you mutter, reaching out to take it back. He’s seen enough, hasn’t he? Yes, time to put it back under the mattress—

“They’re lovely,” Obi-Wan murmurs, still fixated on the messy ink and graphite and occasional dab of paint. He turns the page before you can take it from him.

He freezes. Your protest dies before you can even open your mouth, leaving your cheeks to burn and ice to settle in your chest. It’s a horrible combination. 

There, on the page, is Obi-Wan. Not just one—that wouldn’t be nearly humiliating enough. No, a _litany_ of his face as you’d experimented with new angles and techniques, and in the corner a long, violet fern sprig.

“What’s this?”

“It’s—well—I’m sorry, they’re just—”

“Did I give this to you?” His fingers drift over the pressed leaves. “From Felucia? … That must have been two years ago; I didn’t think you would keep it.”

“I keep all of them. Everything you’ve brought back.” Your voice is hardly above a whisper, hardly enough to dent the silence. 

Obi-Wan still hasn’t looked at you. He examines the book more deliberately now—there’s another sketch of him every few pages or so, alongside a leaf or flower he’d brought you from his travels. It’s his tradition and your joy, a little piece of the world beyond your little flat. Long blades of burgundy grass, verdant spring leaves from the Naboo countryside, tiny, pale blue starflowers from the palace gardens of Alderaan that make up a little garden of your own.

Finally, he turns to the last page you’ve filled. It’s him again, surrounded by a broad swath of negative space. In the upper corner you’d written, _who understands with ease the language of flowers and silent things,_ someone else’s words you’d read in a holobook somewhere that somehow always haunted your dreams in pale purple light. You’d intended to put something else there, too, but hadn’t been able to commit to anything.

“Maybe I’ll put those daisies there.” You point to the page, but you’re looking at him. Still _infuriatingly_ unreadable as his eyes flicker from the sketch to the poem to the empty space you’re pointing at. 

Obi-Wan shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. “These are… lovely, darling. Lovely. But…”

He sighs, flipping through the pages tenderly. “… There must be hundreds of them. Plenty of me, plenty of strangers. But there are none of you.”

You frown, forgetting your embarrassment just for a moment. Of all the objections you’d expected, _that_ certainly wasn’t one of them. You almost laugh at the absurdity of it all—he’s just opened a secret book filled with his own face, and _this_ is what he’s honed in on?

“I don’t… I don’t really…” You shake your head, as if it’ll do a damn thing in making your point. “That’s not really the kind of thing I usually like to draw.”

He finally looks up at you and frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I—I don’t know. This is more for… for things that make me happy. Self-portraits just don’t feel right.”

“Have you ever made one?”

“I _have,_ they’re just…” _Awkward? Sloppy? Ugly beyond belief?_ “… not quite as good as I’d like them to be.”

Obi-Wan looks back at the open page, and you catch the faintest of sighs. Kriff, he can sense it, can’t he? Your distress, your defensiveness, your borderline terror? What are you supposed to do, just turn it off? You wish you could. You wish you could snatch your book away and hide with it under your mattress. You wish—

“I don’t mean to upset you.”

You weren’t ready for the tenderness in his voice, nor the softness in his gaze. He’s too far away to touch you, but something like a gentle warmth washes over you as if he’s cradling your very heart in his hands. 

“I apologize for bringing it up at all. But I assure you, any self-portrait of yours can’t be half as bad as you claim it to be. And if ever you fell… comfortable sharing, I’d very much like to see them. Only when you’re comfortable, of course,” he’s quick to add. 

You hesitate; _this is a bad idea._ You can’t show him without taking it out of the bin—what will he say to that? And what will he say when he sees _why_ you chucked it, especially after pouring over a whole portfolio of your better work, work you loved, work that made you happy? There’s a reason it belongs in the garbage and not in your book. 

You’re on the verge of saying “no.” _No, I don’t have any self-portraits. No, I don’t know where they are. Perhaps another time._ Your mouth is open, but again, you hesitate. You’ll have to respond sooner or later, you realize; you can’t just gape at him for minutes on end. And besides… Obi-Wan’s merciful. He’s gentle. He’s kind. 

He’s safe.

And so you pad to your trash can, and pick up the crumpled ball of wasted paper. Even when you try to stretch it out, it’s ruined for good—the ink’s been smeared in some places, and awkward wrinkles mar the mouth and eyes (as if the composition isn’t janky enough). Honestly, you can’t decide if it distracts from the homeliness, or adds to it.

Obi-Wan takes it from you delicately, almost reverently, and smooths it over his own image. Several seconds pass in silence, punctuated only by the shifting fabric when you sit back down next to him. You tap your fingers against your legs, anything to get feeling circulating in them again. They feel cold. 

“You threw this in the bin,” he says softly, turning to look at you. “Why?”

You force an unconvincing chuckle. “Because it’s not very good.”

“Not good?” He shakes his head and smiles, more to himself than to you. “Why, it’s a perfect likeness.”

_Oh._

The words hit you like a punch in the gut, one after another. _A perfect likeness—_ somehow it’s worse than any real criticism he could have offered you. _Rushed,_ you could handle. Inexpert, uninspired; Maker, even a plain _ugly_ would have sufficed. 

“Perfect,” though… “Perfect” knocks the air from your lungs. “Perfect brings tears to your eyes, and “perfect draws your hands up to your face to hide them. 

No, no, _no._ You’re absolutely not crying about a _kriffing self-portrait_ in front of Obi-Wan. You can blink baack the tears, offer a “thank you” (because surely he meant it as a compliment? _Surely?),_ and stuff the thing back into some drawer. You can get rid of it for good later. You can cry later, too. 

But Obi-Wan’s too quick for you. Before you can even open your mouth, he wraps a warm hand around your wrist, gently pulling it from your forehead.

“No need to hide.” There’s a teasing note behind his voice. But you still won’t look at him—and his posture changes in an instant. “Love?”

 _Love. Love. Love._ It echoes in your brain as if he’d shouted it; you try to stamp it out, but another iteration always takes its place. “It’s—it’s not—”

“Not…?”

You don’t answer; you can’t. Your voice is too strangled, too broken. Just for a moment, you hope he can sense it. Sense it through the Force, through your body language—any way you won’t have to _say_ it, out loud. Anything to keep him from asking what’s wrong, tiredly in the way platitudes always are. But he doesn’t. He only sighs, wraps and arm around your shoulder, and pulls you into him. 

“Daring,” he breathes, resting his chin atop your head, “it _is.”_

“But—”

“Believe me.” He squeezes your arm and tilts your face up to meet his gaze. “Beautiful.”

You turn the word over in your mind, tasting it, testing it. Not perfect. _Beautiful._

“… And it belongs in your book.”

His arm around you withdraws, back to the wrinkled, smudged portrait. You’re about to warn him that you haven’t added any more folders; there’s not enough space to put it in now. But instead he simply slides it into the last slot—into the empty space next to his own.

“Still enough room for those daisies, I think.” He looks back to you with a small smile. “I like it much better here than in the bin.”

“I—I like it here, too.” Your voice feels to small; your breath catches in your throat, and his bottomless blue eyes swallow you whole. 

He reaches up to your face, his fingers just lightly ghosting your temples as he studies you; you shiver in their wake. “Beautiful…” 

_He’s so close to you._ You can feel his hot breath against your cheek, make out each streak and undertone in his irises. And when your lips meet, when your eyes close, when your hands scramble for purchase in his robes and his in your hair, you revel in the texture of the course fabric, in the warmth that radiates from him like a generator, and the fullness of being enveloped in his arms as he pulls you closer. Arms intertwined, gentle light swirling behind your lids, the would-be darkness awash in gold and blue. Lovely, perfect, beautiful.


End file.
